Enough!
She turned the key in the ignition, scrubbed a hand across her eyes, turned on the headlights, and pulled away from the kerb.
There was going to be a reckoning, and it was going to happen right now.
‘Sure you don’t want any wine?’ Tara waggled the half-empty bottle again, making the tips of her long, dark-orange hair jiggle.
Logan gave her a pained smile. ‘Sorry the kitchen’s kind of a tip.’
That was gilding the jobbie a bit. The walls hadn’t even made it as far as the chicken pox stage – instead seventies brown-and-green wallpaper lined the room, faded so much that the pattern looked more like mould than anything else. Dark shapes lurked around the edges where he’d ripped out all the kitchen units. Sockets and switches dangled from their wiring. All the skirting removed to reveal holes in the lathe and plaster. The whole thing topped off by the decorative sculptural presence of an electric cooker straight out of the Flintstones and a battered stainless-steel sink.
Tara settled back in one of the six nonmatching chairs arranged around the rickety kitchen table and looked at him over the top of her glass. Piercing blue eyes, a bit like a wolf’s, surrounded by smokey make-up and freckles. Heart-shaped face with a strong jaw. And, let’s face it, slightly out of his league. The unattainable goddess vibe was only undermined by the big red blob of sauce on her fitted white shirt.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I boring you?’
‘No. No. Not at all.’ He took another slice of pizza from his box. Shrugged. ‘It’s just … my day’s been all errant cops and a missing child. It’s not really … you know.’
Cthulhu jumped up onto the table and plonked herself down between Logan’s ham-and-mushroom and Tara’s vegan Giardiniera with prosciutto. Stuck a leg in the air and started washing her tail.
Tara took a sip of wine. ‘Mine’s been all lockups stuffed to the rafters with counterfeit vodka and cigarettes. So I think you probably win.’
He took a bite. ‘Can’t help wondering what happened to Ellie Morton. Maybe it’s better if she isn’t still alive.’ He followed it with a mouthful of fizzy water. Stifled a burp. ‘You ever heard of something called the “Livestock Mart”?’
‘What, Thainstone?’
‘No, not Thainstone. This one’s highly illegal: supposed to be a place where you can buy and sell abducted children. Moves about the countryside so no one can find it unless they know where to look.’
‘Yeah…’ She lowered her glass. Curled her lip. ‘Not really the kind of thing we deal with in Trading Standards.’
‘Been rumours doing the rounds for years. Decades, probably. But no one’s ever—’
Cthulhu sat bolt upright on the table, staring off into the corner of the room at a large hole gnawed through the lathe and plaster.
Logan scooted forward on his chair. ‘Oh ho, here we go.’
Cthulhu thumped down from the table like a dropped washing machine and prowled across the kitchen floorboards. Hunting.
‘Mice.’ Another bite of ham-and-mushroom. ‘Rotten wee sods have eaten half the wiring and nearly all the pipe insulation.’
‘So let’s get this straight: you invited me round to your vermin-infested house to eat takeaway pizza and talk about people buying and selling kids – and you think you’re getting lucky tonight?’
He pointed at the bottle in front of her. ‘There’s more wine, if that helps?’
Tara shook her head. ‘I’m a fool to myself.’
‘Hopefully…’ A grin. ‘And what’s a few mice between friends?’
Tara shuddered. ‘I hate mice.’
Ellie hugged her knees to her chest and pulled the blankie tight. It wasn’t easy, cos the man had tied her hands together with itchy rope. She sucked a breath in around the big red ball stuck in her mouth. And she couldn’t even spit it out cos it was all buckled at the back of her head.
The buckle pulled at her hair whenever she leaned against the wall of the crate.
A wooden crate, made of bits of wood, with spaces between the bits of wood so she wouldn’t stuffocate. And she could peer out, through the gaps, into the Scary Room that was all dark and smelled of dirt and nasty things and crying.
Dirty-orange light glowed through a manky-pants window, thick with spiders’ webs and the shiny black lumps of dead flies. It was barely bright enough to see the edges of boxes and piles of stuff and dead bicycles hiding in the shadows. And the other crates…
Seven crates and her one made eight – same as the number of tentapoles on an octopus.
Mouses skitter-pattered across the dirt floor between them, on teeny pink feet, their eyes shiny as black marbles, teeny pink noses twitching, teeny pink ears swivelling.
One of them crept closer to Ellie’s crate, sniffing, whiskers twitching.
It slid between two of the wooden bits, even though the gap was only big enough to poke a finger.
A tiny mousey, with its twitchy tail and its sniffy nose.
She held her breath as it stared at her, then inched towards what was left of her sammitch – just the crusts, because they were icky.
Soft and fluffy mousey.
Ellie tried to make a smile, but the big red ball in her mouth was all difficult, so she did gentle crooning noises instead. Grubby fingers reaching, reaching…
The mousey looked at her, pointy head on one side as her fingers got closer and closer.
Then she’d got him! She’d got the mousey! And he was all soft and fuzzy and warm and she would call him Whiskers and Whiskers would be her best—
Whiskers squeaked and sank his teeth into her thumb and it stung and it hurt and teeny drops of blood fell out of her thumb and she dropped Whiskers cos he’d bitted her!
Bad mousey!
She snatched her hand away and he tumbled to the floor, scampering back out through a gap in the wooden boards.
He bitted her…
Her thumb thumped and stung and throbbed and there was nobody to kiss it better.
Ellie slumped against the crate walls as big snottery sobs rattled out of her.
She only wanted a friend.
Everything was horrid and cold and unfair and her thumb hurt and SHE WANTED TO GO HOME!
And outside, in the Scary Room, someone else started crying too – all muffled and sniffy. Then the other someone, till all three of them were snuffling in the darkness. Like little piggies, waiting to be turned into sausages.
The letterbox went chlack, and that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner thumped onto the bare floorboards. Logan bent to pick it up, as the light on the papergirl’s bike faded through the rippled glass.
He held his mug against his chest, its warmth seeping into the bare skin. Probably should have put on a bit more than jammie bottoms, but hey-ho.
A noise mumbled out from the bedroom upstairs.
Logan took a sip of coffee and unrolled the newspaper, heading back through into the living room.
The